Strategic Healthcare Marketing and the Internet

There are only a few stragglers among medical professionals in the rush to embrace social media. The reason is that most see the potential Internet marketing holds. It is estimated that almost 64 million Americans actively use the Internet in their search for health information. As a result, 95% of practicing medical professionals has some kind of online presence.

While these numbers are impressive they also present issues every plastic surgeon needs to understand.

The competition for being noticed is intense

Having a presence does not equal strategic healthcare marketing

Get Ahead of the Curve

Strategic healthcare marketing requires that a plastic surgeon is aware of what methods are trending toward being less effective and what methods are currently producing the best return on investment.

When it comes to using the internet as a marketing tool, medical professionals are too often caught in the same situation in which many decisions makers are trapped – staying one step behind the learning curve. Like most other media, the Internet is in yet another cycle in which formerly proven methods are beginning to lose their effectiveness.

Until recently, paid advertisements such as Pay-Per-View and Pay-Per-Click or even more costly paid placements on professional web sites was considered the most effective way to funnel traffic. Those methods still work but are now less effective in the long run than meaningful content, optimization, and social media. This has shifted the focus from Outbound to Inbound Marketing

Strategic Healthcare Marketing

Plastic Surgeons on the cutting edge of things already have a great web site. That site is a storehouse for everything your practice does and stands for. As great as that site is, it still won’t grow your practice. Strategic healthcare marketing involves a variety of techniques that help physicians get found online by those who are already looking for the kinds of services they provide. It employs strategies that encourage Internet visitors and followers to invest time and take specific actions in return for something of value.

“Strategic” means understanding that no channel of marketing works in isolation.A professional using strategic healthcare marketing surveys the big picture like a general does the whole field of battle in a military campaign. By seeing all the channels of Internet marketing in the context of a unified advertising campaign a plastic surgeon has more than just a web presence. That plastic surgeon has a prospect producing machine!

How well your strategic healthcare marketing works is proportional to the quality time you put into it. The commitment to this process constantly forces you to think about how to better serve your patients. It forces you toward an even greater commitment to expertise in your field, and sharing your knowledge. All of this will make you a better physician. It’s not easy, but that’s why you’ll be successful while your competitors waste time looking for shortcuts that simply don’t exist.

A unified view of advertising, social media and your web presence translate into strategic healthcare marketing that leads to organic growth of a steady stream of potential clients. It is also makes the best use of your resources, both human and economic, while presenting the best possible representation of what you and your practice are about.

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About Tim
Tim George is a regularly contributing author to the MDWebPro blog. Tim is passionate about web marketing for MDs expecially the latest trends and results in social media, SEO and inbound marketing. For more, please follow @MDWebPro on Twitter